1994: Didn't Samuel Solve that Game?

This chapter is a history of computer checkers. Christopher Strachey was the first to write a checkers-playing program in the early 1950s, but the effort was short-lived. Arthur Samuel did research using checkers as his application domain for roughly 25 years, beginning in the mid-1950s. His pioneering work on using his program to learn parts of its game-specific knowledge has stood the test of time. Today, we regard his work as being the forerunner of modern reinforcement learning (discussed in a later chapter). In 1989, the Chinook checkers program AI research project started. A year later, they surprised everyone by winning the right to play for the human world championship. That match was played in 1992, resulting in a narrow win for Dr. Marion Tinsley. A 1994 rematch was called off after six games because of Dr. Tinsley’s illness. Chinook defended its title twice before retiring from competition in 1997. In 2007, the Chinook team announced that they had solved checkers – perfect play by both sides leads to a draw.